Customer Reviews

Enemies: How America's Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets--and How We Let It Happen

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Bill Gertz explains clearly the rationale for improving America's counterintelligence. He throws out all political correctness that has put us in this current situation. Gertz is a better man for exposing these problems in our intelligence community. Now they may get fixed properly. Gertz can not believe that the Intelligence community has not changed many of its tactics since 9/11. Gertz points out the lack of intelligence in Iraq before the war began. He describes the problem with bureaucracy and its blocking of new changes. Gertz in each chapter describes a spy case that has happened in the past decades. Some points that jumped out at me in the book.

1.) Chinese spies put out disinformation campaigns to the U.S government.

2.) The U.S has not changed its approach to China since the end of the Cold War.

3.) A 2005 report on China is blasted by Gertz as "fundamentally wrong".

4.) How can the U.S do business with such an oppressive regime like China?

5.) A spy that stole American valuable weapons technology such as the Rail gun and Quiet Electric Drive.

6.) The spy's plan was to execute "Assassin's Mace": "select technology and weaponry that allows a smaller, weaker military power to defeat a larger, stronger one."

7.) This spy also stole plans on a next generation destroyer known as DDX

8.) Gertz states that China is so interested in our Navy because war with China would mean the Navy would be a primary factor.

9.) Gertz also discusses Russian spies like Aldrich Ames and Hanssen.

10.) Ames as a spy revealed more than one hundred covert American operations and betrayed more than thirty sources.

11.) Asan Akbar: Muslim U.S soldier attacked U.S soldiers at Camp Pennsylvania.

12.) Ali Mohamed: SF Sergeant pleaded guilty in 2000 to helping Osama in the 1998 embassy bombing.

13.) Stakeknife: Aggressive counter-intelligence used by Great Britain against the IRA.

I thought Stakeknife was the highlight of the book. The way that England embedded in the IRA to accomplish their missions. Enemies was a good book that was hard to put down at time and slow in other parts. The book should be read for the simple fact of showing that other countries have better spying programs than the U.S. The U.S needs to move away from the bureaucratic mess that caused 9/11. I can see now why problems still exist in our intelligence community. Gertz is a mastermind on intelligence and his words need to be read to understand our current situations.

This book brings to light the extent our enemies will go to get information they want. It also tells how often international agreements on arms and nuclear material are violated for money. While the United States has to try to work with many nations to broker some form of peace, the book shows there is no Nation we can fully trust. A good read for anyone interested in espionage and counterintelligence.

It will never happen, of course. Real investigative reporters who don't disguise their love and concern for the United States, folks like Bill Gertz and Bill Sammon will never gain the respect and votes of the Pulitzer Prize committee. They preserve their votes for people like Walter Duranty, who denied there was famine in the Ukraine and won a Lenin Prize in addition to his Pulitzer.

Gertz is concerned for America's safety. As he puts it "[u]ntil we fix the gaping holes in our defenses, America will remain highly vulnerable to our enemies." And after reading this book, if you weren't already worried, you will be.

Anyone who has visited a government office, whether to renew their driver's license, pay their property taxes, mail a package or whatever, knows that governments do not hire the cream of the crop. What happens when second, third and fourth rate people are hired by the CIA, the FBI and other security agencies?

Uh, you get second, third or fourth rate performance in situations where the stakes are very, very high: like the preservation of the nation's secrets.

Gertz details scandals resulting from the incompetence of the CIA and FBI. A Chinese woman has two lovers, both FBI agents. She's one of their prized informants - and a spy for the Chinese government. The investigation of her is muddled and she walks.

The FBI spends years persecuting a CIA agent suspected of being a spy. They have no real evidence, but the harassment is non-stop. Their big clue is the CIA employee's proximity to a partiular park. After three years, after a KGB defector is paid $7 million for information, the FBI learns that the spy indeed lives near the park in question: his name is Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent who has spied for the Soviets for years.

Gertz points out that literally every nation is spying on the United States - and that our agencies are horribly grossly incompetent to detect the spies and catch them.

This is a frightening book, but one that every concerned American should read.

Jerry

In his crisply written, well researched style Gertz hits another homerun with Enemies. Like a scientist looking at an iceberg Gertz has the contacts and skills to investigate the 80% that's hidden from the public, either through spin control or the bias of the press.

Gertz weaves together the threads of the fabric that China uses to blind the American public to the threat while it exerts far too much control over Washington with a combination of agents of influence, spys and those willing to look the other way when the Chicom campaign contributions come rolling in.

The follies of the FBI also play a large role in the book as Gertz unravels the bungled investigations and prosecutions which allowed so many spies to go free or with just a slap on the wrist. The bizzare goings on in the FBI's ranks where two senior agents are sleeping with a Chinese agent and feeding her information on other investigations. The belief inside the FBI that the mole must be in the CIA when it was really one of the FBI agents. The tragic loss of material from our nuclear labs.

This is a great but not pleasant read. Sadly thousands of our sons and daughters are likely to die as the result of the failure to recognize China as a major military threat with expansionist goals.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Note - The one star reviews are mostly by one review posters who do not appear to have read to book or perhaps posting from somewhere in the far east.

Gertz took a critical issue and turns it into a litany of anecdotal stories about people who betray the trust their government put in them. Yes, there are spies in our government and something needs to be done with them. But Gertz is short on answers other than blaming the political correctness crowd and liberal democrats. Although they are deserving of much of the blame they are not the only ones guilty of the gaps in our counter-espionage efforts.

One thing that really jumped out at me is his choice of sources. One individual -- whose name escapes me as I do not have the book in front of me -- is a counter-espionage expert at the FBI who is described in several chapters as part of the problem in terms of covering for people who probably do not deserve cover and is then cited as an expert in other chapters. Which is it Bill? Either this source is part of the problem or part of the solution?

All in all, the book was big on rehashing stories of spies within the government but short on solutions.

I think this book is excellent for one who likes to write essays or research paper about national security. There are a lot of information I haven't even known before from other information sources. the content of the book is well organized, so easy to collect information what I need for my writing. The stories were real happened, so it made me be interested. I'm sure this book is good for you to achieve your goals to write essays or researchpaper as well as you enjoy reading many interesting real stories.

Bill Gertz lays out the total failure of the entire US Government to properly protect our vital national secrets and exposes the repeated bungling of counterintelligence operations and investigations. If this book doesn't make your blood boil than you are either the enemy or part of the problem in the USG.

The title should be "The Enemy Within" as we seem to be our own worse enemy.

The priority always seemed to be telling the powers to be what they wanted to hear in order to preserve job security and personal career growth.

If we continue to keep the "head in the sand" attitude we will be in real trouble.

I urge anyone who works for a defense contractor or a government agency to read this book.

Dave C

Nashua , NH